20160710

I have stayed silent on this issue because I haven't known what to say. I didn't know how to begin: how could I contribute anything meaningful to the thousand of voices saying things more eloquently and passionately? And then I read this today: a letter from a mixed race woman to quiet white friends. This made me realize that not saying anything is a way of saying something.

So I want to say this: black lives matter and blue lives matter. The recent (and not-so-recent) killings in both directions are completely unacceptable. While I haven't been personally impacted by these events, I have loved ones on both sides, as do many people. But they aren't even "sides"; as Trevor Noah said, you can be pro-cop and pro-black.

Something is obviously broken, and I want to do my part to fix it. For now, maybe all I can do is acknowledge that there is a problem and try to understand it better. But if everyone did that, we would already have made a lot of progress.

The question isn't whose lives matter. They all matter. The real question is: what will you do to make the world better and safer?

Edit/addition: I just wanted to be clear that while "all lives matter," I wasn't trying to dismiss the BLM movement in any way. BLM focuses on making the world better and safer for black citizens. This is very necessary, and if successful, they will end up helping the world in more ways than they originally intended. All I was trying to say is that it doesn't matter who you're trying to help, as long as you are doing something productive and not just dismissing the situation.